#um anyways! this is not to say that depicting jon as a poc is specifically bad

[ririprobably]

i don’t have enough energy to coherently articulate this thought but man. the tma fandom is so much less woke or progressive or whatever you want to call it than you guys think you are.

like for reference i have seen Many People say things like “oh unlike the wtnv fanbase, WE depict the main character as a poc. look at how progressive we are 🤪” and first of all.. wtnv is from an era in which the majority of the characters common on this website were white and skinny and yeah that sucks but it’s not comparable to the environment we exist in or the media we consume in 2020 (in which! btw tons of people depict cecil as a poc). white default was still a thing. it IS still a thing. it’s a system to unlearn but unlearning it doesn’t make you... better than teenagers from 2015??

but even beyond the wtnv comparison. it seems like the mentality is that tma fans are extremely socially aware, which is true to an extent, is extremely common even though there is absolutely no critical thinking put into the way fans talk about race, and y’all use that as a way to ignore the actual issues with the way poc are depicted. drawing a character with dark skin does not equal representation or social awareness. i can’t speak for every poc obviously but as someone who is south asian and middle eastern, there are times when fan depictions of jon get.. really uncomfortable. same with a lot of content i’ve seen about annabelle (especially from before 180). it’s a spectrum ranging from “this feels a little prejudiced” to “this is a microagression/this is dehumanizing/this is playing into a rhetoric that is used to justify racism” and a lot of the time i DON’T think it’s conscious. i feel like i have to clarify that i’m not saying that anyone is a raging racist because of course you’re depicting this character as a person of color out of a place of good intent. but good intent isn’t enough sometimes. if you want to depict poc in your writing/art/etc. as a white person i would advise doing research on whatever group you’re representing or just.. talking to a person from that group? slapping the label of “minority” onto a character is, at best, lazy or, at worst, genuinely harmful to that group. like i cannot urge you strongly enough to analyze a) the character you’re depicting and how their traits tie into the ethnicity/race you’e representing (race impacts identity SO much beyond just “i experienced racism”/“i didn’t experience racism” and i feel like a lot of people, myself included, forget) b) your internal biases (which are so deeply engrained. everyone struggles with internalized biases! everyone needs to unlearn them!) and c) how you represent this! cultural identity goes beyond a skin tone.

actually this applies to so much more than tma and at some point i’ll write something on racial representation and how it can be harmful in general but. going back to my original point lol. white tma fans think critically about the characters you’re depicting as poc and HOW you’re depicting them and also maybe stop being so self congratulatory <3